Are they moving jobs to St. Louis? How does this increase our tax revenues? We do not tax for example the sale of stocks. We lost a lot when AB was bought by Inbev. Does F.X. Daly have jurisdiction outside our boundaries? Sure, it's good Peabody is turning into the Monsanto of Coal, but I question whether City Hall is thinking of ways to benefit or are they rather in the mindset of handing out 60 million in tax breaks?
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^Do we necessarily want city hall "thinking of ways to benefit?" Your ideal politician seems akin to a pirate (although they may all be that to begin with 
).
Economic development is critically important to the future success of the city. Having more assets is going to result in the need for Peabody to both A - move jobs currently in Australia for McCarthur to StL as well as B - creating new jobs here (high-paying, mind you) in order to further manage their growing asset base.
So Yes, to all of your questions.
(Also, of course we "lost" when AB was bought by InBev. The company was bought by someone else. I fail to see how this applies in the slightest to a StL company acquiring another company from outside the region. They are literally COMPLETE opposites.)
Edit - Also, because you have an extremely selective memory, Peabody turned down (or returned) the incentive package offered to them by the city to remain downtown, while also helping to revive a great civic asset in the Opera House.
I am trying to be nice, but you seriously need to pay attention more closely before rambling on about your idealist viewpoints. Barking up the wrong tree here buddy.
).Economic development is critically important to the future success of the city. Having more assets is going to result in the need for Peabody to both A - move jobs currently in Australia for McCarthur to StL as well as B - creating new jobs here (high-paying, mind you) in order to further manage their growing asset base.
So Yes, to all of your questions.
(Also, of course we "lost" when AB was bought by InBev. The company was bought by someone else. I fail to see how this applies in the slightest to a StL company acquiring another company from outside the region. They are literally COMPLETE opposites.)
Edit - Also, because you have an extremely selective memory, Peabody turned down (or returned) the incentive package offered to them by the city to remain downtown, while also helping to revive a great civic asset in the Opera House.
I am trying to be nice, but you seriously need to pay attention more closely before rambling on about your idealist viewpoints. Barking up the wrong tree here buddy.
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newstl2020 wrote:^Do we necessarily want city hall "thinking of ways to benefit?" Your ideal politician seems akin to a pirate (although they may all be that to begin with
Economic development is critically important to the future success of the city. Having more assets is going to result in the need for Peabody to both A - move jobs currently in Australia for McCarthur to StL as well as B - creating new jobs here (high-paying, mind you) in order to further manage their growing asset base.
So Yes, to all of your questions.
(Also, of course we "lost" when AB was bought by InBev. The company was bought by someone else. I fail to see how this applies in the slightest to a StL company acquiring another company from outside the region. They are litterally COMPLETE opposites.)
Edit - Also, because you have an extremely selective memory, Peabody turned down (or returned) the incentive package offered to them by the city to remain downtown, while also helping to revive a great civic asset in the Opera House.
I am trying to be nice, but you seriously need to pay attention more closely before rambling on about your idealist viewpoints. Barking up the wrong tree here buddy.
3 things I think Doug wanted to mention but forgot to.
1) How does this further frame the argument that Mayor Slay is completely useless and should always be looked at as such?
2) How does this further the theory that all white people are evil and are always looking to profit from/exploit/overlook the plight of North City blacks?
3) Century Building?
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Funny. But it will be interesting to see what the benefits to St. Louis will be. Will Peabody add more jobs than they were planning downtown? How many? What will increased city revenue be? There are many intangibles that make the deal a good thing and I tend to think it will be an economic positive as well, but no one knows exactly how this is going to work yet.
I don't understand what's with the hostility. City government offered 60 million in tax breaks to one firm, Peabody refused 10 in New Market Tax credits which are not even intended for cash plenty transnational corporations, while we are putting in trash collection fees, several years of furloughs, and other department cuts. Do you know how much our budget is annually? If we have firms in the City benefiting from global markets then why can't the City capture some of this growth in order to invest in things we need like schools, streetscape, and transit? Don't such investments make our City attractive to capital and residents?
The City has exempted the sale of stock from the earnings tax and the gross receipts tax for the Cardinals among other things. We are in a mentality that the City must hand out whatever necessary for firms otherwise they will move. Yet it seems some are doing quite fine enough to expand into other countries. Then why do they need special treatment from a municipality which cannot take care of its own people and is second class to a piece of sh*t hamlet like Clayton?
Presuppose they use the Arch as their corporate logo. What does that mean when St. Louis has failing schools and a ridiculous crime problem? How does that benefit firms to be associated with that issue? Maybe if resources were made available, to those who are tasked with addressing them, the problem would go away or at least be less than it is today? I am happy we have a few firms that are making big expansions. I only ask they pay their fair share to the City which provides them with so much ample parking and other incentives. If St. Louis City is such a great place to do business then do not extort its taxpayers while you're buying out firms in other hemispheres.
The City has exempted the sale of stock from the earnings tax and the gross receipts tax for the Cardinals among other things. We are in a mentality that the City must hand out whatever necessary for firms otherwise they will move. Yet it seems some are doing quite fine enough to expand into other countries. Then why do they need special treatment from a municipality which cannot take care of its own people and is second class to a piece of sh*t hamlet like Clayton?
Presuppose they use the Arch as their corporate logo. What does that mean when St. Louis has failing schools and a ridiculous crime problem? How does that benefit firms to be associated with that issue? Maybe if resources were made available, to those who are tasked with addressing them, the problem would go away or at least be less than it is today? I am happy we have a few firms that are making big expansions. I only ask they pay their fair share to the City which provides them with so much ample parking and other incentives. If St. Louis City is such a great place to do business then do not extort its taxpayers while you're buying out firms in other hemispheres.
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What magical areas do not extort taxpayers???doug wrote: If St. Louis City is such a great place to do business then do not extort its taxpayers while you're buying out firms in other hemispheres.
It gives St. Louis exposure to a country on the other side of the planet. That's how. In a global economy, St. Louis now has connections with Australia, China, and other east Asia countries. Peabody has done a lot for St. Louis in that regard.How does Peabody acquiring a firm in Australia benefit the City of St. Louis?
Somehow Peabody buying McArthur has turned into an argument about city tax payers and corporate welfare. An argument that will go around in circles and can be had elsewhere.
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I'm still hoping to learn more about what this means. What does exposure to a country on the other side of the planet give St. Louis? Materially? Again, basically looking for revenue to city and jobs.pat wrote:It gives St. Louis exposure to a country on the other side of the planet. That's how. In a global economy, St. Louis now has connections with Australia, China, and other east Asia countries. Peabody has done a lot for St. Louis in that regard.
Mergers will continue to happen. It's take over or being taken over. With this acquisition Peabody might become big enough to be safe from (hostile) take-overs, which obviously benefits downtown St. Louis as its headquarters.
Further, you'd have to think that there will be some addition of new jobs downtown but this is speculation.
Look at the May company (Famous-Barr). In the early 2000's they tried to take over Cincinnati-based Federated (Macy's). They failed and just a few years later they were acquired by that same Federated. We lost our headquarters and thousands of well-paying jobs.
I'd rather be on the side of the acquiring party than on the other side, regardless of the addition of jobs.
Further, you'd have to think that there will be some addition of new jobs downtown but this is speculation.
Look at the May company (Famous-Barr). In the early 2000's they tried to take over Cincinnati-based Federated (Macy's). They failed and just a few years later they were acquired by that same Federated. We lost our headquarters and thousands of well-paying jobs.
I'd rather be on the side of the acquiring party than on the other side, regardless of the addition of jobs.
Yes, "exposure" is a generic term.I'm still hoping to learn more about what this means. What does exposure to a country on the other side of the planet give St. Louis? Materially? Again, basically looking for revenue to city and jobs.
Many local companies do business with Peabody, including the one I work for. Engineering firms, contractors, electrical/mechanical distributors, controls/software engineers, and sales reps from STL all do work with Peabody. There's a chance that whatever work needs to be done at their new acquisitions/partnerships in Australia or China will be done by those they are already familiar with in St. Louis. If local companies get those projects, they'll likely be working with Australian and Chinese companies. That creates potential new global business opportunities for local companies in St. Louis. The largest private coal company working in different parts of the world can easily have a trickle down effect to the smaller ones it does business with here.
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^^To add on to Pat's insightful comments, consider how A-B historically has utilized STL-based advertising agencies. It helped develop STL into one of the advertising industry's strongest clusters. There are real and incredible opportunities for considerable growth in companies providing services to multinational corporations, growing both domestically and globally.
The abyssimal levels of stupidity present earlier in this thread are so unbelieveable, unanticipateable, and mind-numbingly apparent that it almost has me leaving my office, right now, for a gas station so I can buy two packs of Marlboros, which I thought I quit, so I can smoke and curse at the sky.
To paraphrase Billy Madison’s high school principal, we are all dumber for having read what’s been written around here. I’ve personally read smarter things on bathroom walls.
Do you have any idea how either Federalism or taxation works?
And even if you don’t see how M&A directly benefits social programs in STL, quite simply, this thread isn’t meant to do that. It’s about discussing how locally-based companies are involved in mergers and acquisitions, domestic and global, and not whether or not Francis Slay is paving enough sidewalks.
All: We already have enough threads lamenting parking garages…
Can we please get this thread back to talking about M&A?
To paraphrase Billy Madison’s high school principal, we are all dumber for having read what’s been written around here. I’ve personally read smarter things on bathroom walls.
Are you seriously discussing STL City being able to tax sales of stock? Or taxing unrealized gains?doug wrote:The City has exempted the sale of stock from the earnings tax and the gross receipts tax for the Cardinals among other things. We are in a mentality that the City must hand out whatever necessary for firms otherwise they will move. Yet it seems some are doing quite fine enough to expand into other countries. Then why do they need special treatment from a municipality which cannot take care of its own people and is second class to a piece of sh*t hamlet like Clayton?
Do you have any idea how either Federalism or taxation works?
And even if you don’t see how M&A directly benefits social programs in STL, quite simply, this thread isn’t meant to do that. It’s about discussing how locally-based companies are involved in mergers and acquisitions, domestic and global, and not whether or not Francis Slay is paving enough sidewalks.
All: We already have enough threads lamenting parking garages…
Can we please get this thread back to talking about M&A?
To take things totally Off Topic, or perhaps back On Topic (I can't tell anymore), I'd like to see a significant regional bank headquartered in St. Louis. Commerce & UMB both have major operational headquarters here, but ultimately their corporate HQs are in KC. Therefore it'd be great to see consolidation and acquisitions among local retail banks to produce something equivalent to Evansville's Old Nation or Cincinnati's First Financial. For instance, if Enterprise, Pulaski, & Centrue were to merge they would form a $6bil. bank with 18 local branch locations and they'd rank 5th in local deposits with $2bil. That's just an example, and obviously an unlikely one, but it's something I'd like to see. St. Louis has such a strong financial sector, it should include a moderately sized regional bank.
The next St. Louis company to go on a buying spree might be Insituform, they just secured a $500 million dollar credit line to replace an existing $115 million creidit line as reported by the Biz Journal. They have been on a tear as far as securing contracts to rehabilitate old pipes, stormwater and sewer. The cost advantage they provide to the owner is not having to dig up and replace old leaky pipes which means a lot considering the market itself has a lot of old leaky pipes in the ground and owners, mostly public entities, that are cash strapped.
Insituform enters new $500 million loan agreement
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... llion.html
Even though they are not on the scale of Express Scripps or Peabody, they are getting themselve to the point of being as well known as some other well established and fair sized contractors based in St. Louis - McCarthy, Alberici, and Clayco
Insituform enters new $500 million loan agreement
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... llion.html
Even though they are not on the scale of Express Scripps or Peabody, they are getting themselve to the point of being as well known as some other well established and fair sized contractors based in St. Louis - McCarthy, Alberici, and Clayco
The other unique thing about Insituform is that they also have secured international contracts on a regular basis. Different from McCarthy, Alberice, and Clayco where revenues are pretty much within the US.
gone corporate wrote:Are you seriously discussing STL City being able to tax sales of stock? Or taxing unrealized gains?doug wrote:The City has exempted the sale of stock from the earnings tax and the gross receipts tax for the Cardinals among other things. We are in a mentality that the City must hand out whatever necessary for firms otherwise they will move. Yet it seems some are doing quite fine enough to expand into other countries. Then why do they need special treatment from a municipality which cannot take care of its own people and is second class to a piece of sh*t hamlet like Clayton?
Well, no, he isn't. He made a pretty glowing error, but your blind defense of capitalism misses the point, as well.
St. Louis City has an earnings tax. You make $10,000 in salary, you pay $100. Further, if a lawyer or accountant gets a $10,000 bonus, they pay $100. It's been awhile since I owned part of a C corporation, but I'm pretty sure that the mandatory profit distributions from C corporations are also still considered "earnings," so if my cute little graphics firm makes $10,000 during the fiscal year, I have to pay $100.
The C corporations notwithstanding (perhaps one of our accounting or tax law brethren on the board can certify or disprove that one): Earnings are taxed at 1%.
Sometime in the late '90s, some of those poor gone-corporate types were just all dismayed that they had to pay taxes on realized options. (Not "sale of stock.") This was, of course, 10 or fewer publicly held companies within the city boundaries, so it was a minuscule percentage of all City businesses -- but, of course, their proportionate political power was, shall we say, disproportionate*.
Anyway, they sued. "Options income is not earnings," they claimed. Never mind that they paid federal income taxes on said "not earnings" -- that 1% really galled them.
They lost.
A few years later, inexplicably (save for * above), the City just bent over and gave them an exemption. The rationale at the time (dot-com boom and all that) was that "options are the currency of the dot-com era." Never mind that you have to go public to exercise options, and the entire area had had fewer than five IPOs in the prior decade.
(I paraphrase. In any event, the alderthing that said this, more or less, was allegedly a CPA. A CPA who, if she worked for an accounting firm downtown -- a firm that might, say, also want to blow town because of the tax -- did not have her bonus exempted in the same way that options exercise was exempted.)
The second rationale was that all these Ralston and A-B (and Mallinckrodt, I believe, and maybe a few other) types would blow town because less than 1 percent of their total employees would have to pay 1 percent of their realized options income as earnings taxes.
Mysteriously, even after this giveaway was passed, Ralston sold to Nestle, and A-B sold to InBev (and maybe Mallinckrodt sold to Tyco, I don't remember the timing). They left ANYWAY. And the radically cash-strapped City willingly allowed itself to forgo on the order of many millions of dollars in earnings taxes that resulted from the hundreds of millions of dollars in "not income" that resulted from options exercise triggered by the sales.
Here endeth the lesson.
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^Interesting post. (Seriously. Don't want this to be construed as sarcasm.)
I don't think this discussion belongs here, however. Or, if it does, is extremely ill-timed and doesn't have much to do with the current point of the thread as 99.99999% of McCarthur shareholders would not be subject to city earnings tax on option or stock income from this buyout.
I don't think this discussion belongs here, however. Or, if it does, is extremely ill-timed and doesn't have much to do with the current point of the thread as 99.99999% of McCarthur shareholders would not be subject to city earnings tax on option or stock income from this buyout.
I apologize for my error, and my remedial understanding of financial markets, but this story which Mr. Bonwich further elaborated is what I was talking about. I will reiterate that transnational firms which are expanding should not be given preferential treatment by a municipality that is furloughing its employees and cannot pay its pension costs. Another example, which I cited, was exempting the St. Louis Cardinals' ticket sales from the gross receipts tax also know as the sports and amusement tax. Ironically though Slay justified the need for the new stadium, when he was President of the Board of Alderman, on the basis that we collected revenue from this tax from those who are not city residents. The Blues also do not pay this tax.
Growth in one sector of the economy or at one firm can mean they will thus spend more money purchasing services or goods from others. For example if car manufacturers are selling they will need more steel and thus those that mine it will benefit. However, there is no guarantee that Peabody or whomever is looking to local firms to meet that alleged demand. They could look to Australian or Chinese who already know the ins and outs of those business which were recently acquired. They probably know a lot more about the corporate and national cultural differences. They may have already done business with them before. I hope our local firms can compete, but I think it's a bit naive to think they would automatically get contracts when they are going against people who may have an edge.
My fathers firm was bought out again. They want to get rid of their legal counsel which they have had for 25 years. It is based downtown. Large firms don't care about loyalty, relationships, or necessarily helping a smaller firm grow with them. They are concerned with creating value for their investors every quarter. Furthermore, under current neoliberal doctrine that doesn't consider especially public goods like if the sidewalks are repaired or if transit works for their employees because the executives are parked in an attached garage and don't need to leave the building. So I hope our local firms are able to grow when Peabody is looking to its recent acquisitions, but I will remain skeptical. I think that's fair given how our corporate leaders have led St. Louis thus far and how others in New York brought us to record national unemployment.
Growth in one sector of the economy or at one firm can mean they will thus spend more money purchasing services or goods from others. For example if car manufacturers are selling they will need more steel and thus those that mine it will benefit. However, there is no guarantee that Peabody or whomever is looking to local firms to meet that alleged demand. They could look to Australian or Chinese who already know the ins and outs of those business which were recently acquired. They probably know a lot more about the corporate and national cultural differences. They may have already done business with them before. I hope our local firms can compete, but I think it's a bit naive to think they would automatically get contracts when they are going against people who may have an edge.
My fathers firm was bought out again. They want to get rid of their legal counsel which they have had for 25 years. It is based downtown. Large firms don't care about loyalty, relationships, or necessarily helping a smaller firm grow with them. They are concerned with creating value for their investors every quarter. Furthermore, under current neoliberal doctrine that doesn't consider especially public goods like if the sidewalks are repaired or if transit works for their employees because the executives are parked in an attached garage and don't need to leave the building. So I hope our local firms are able to grow when Peabody is looking to its recent acquisitions, but I will remain skeptical. I think that's fair given how our corporate leaders have led St. Louis thus far and how others in New York brought us to record national unemployment.
Come on, Doug, it's not that bad. In 2010, the national unemployment rate was 9.6%; in 1932 it was 23.6%.doug wrote: brought us to record national unemployment.
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It was an interesting note in an article about Graybar buying the nearby building to stop the proposed Westin hotel that employee-owned Graybar moved from Manhattan to Clayton in the 80's. A relocation rather than an acquisition, I guess, but wanted to share. I know New York was in trouble in the 80's but it would be interesting to know why the selection of Clayton.
Ralcorp keeps saying NO. Question is, will Conagra stick with its own self imposed final offer?
My gut feeling is that Ralcorp must have a few acquitisions in mind. Speculation, but does Sarah Lee or another part of it make sense?
Ralcorp again rejects $5.17 billion ConAgra bid
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... llion.html
My gut feeling is that Ralcorp must have a few acquitisions in mind. Speculation, but does Sarah Lee or another part of it make sense?
Ralcorp again rejects $5.17 billion ConAgra bid
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... llion.html
Looks like Ralcorp saying NO is working out to the benefit to downtown St Louis as per the KWMU website posting this afternoon. Of course, taking some incentives but adding 100 employees helps.
City to use tax credits to retain Ralcorp
By Rachel Lippmann
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/cit ... in-ralcorp
City to use tax credits to retain Ralcorp
By Rachel Lippmann
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/cit ... in-ralcorp
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What are the chances that Ralcorp would abandon their downtown STL campus? Meaning, how many incentives are needed to keep them?